In the past year, a number of Xbox Live subscribers have seen their accounts taken over by hackers. In the past, Microsoft has denied that their Xbox Live servers have been breached by cyber attacks and instead have blamed outside attacks, such as phishing scams, as the reasons for these issues.

Today, in a post on the Xbox.com website, Alex Garden, the general manager of Xbox Live, has given an update on Microsoft's efforts in improving security for Xbox Live accounts. A recent Xbox Live software update, " ... included many behind the scenes improvements that help us build on security enhancements for the near future", according to Garden. He did not give any specifics.

Microsoft has also made efforts to remove public postings of Xbox Live "gamertags, usernames and passwords" that have been gathered by hackers. He added, "We’re sending unique codes to the security phone numbers and secondary email addresses provided by members to verify authorization for Xbox.com purchases or account change attempts not stemming from a member’s trusted device."

Even with these improvements, Microsoft is still urging Xbox Live members to take actions on their own to protect their accounts. That includes changing their passwords on a regular basis. Garden states, "Sadly, 'password' and '12345' are still top of the most common password lists when we see breaches occur and passwords posted online."